Trump says the president of Syria — a former jihadist — is "a young, attractive guy" — "Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter."

Trump seems to love to comment on the good looks of men. 

I'm reading "Trump meets Syria’s ‘attractive, tough’ president after lifting US sanctions/US president meets Ahmed al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia as lifting of sanctions is met with jubilation in Damascus" (The Guardian).

In Syria, people watched the images of their president standing beside the leaders of the US and Saudi Arabia on their TV screens in amazement....

“For 15 years the world had this picture of us Syrians as refugees. Now they see us as we are. You can finally see light and you can see hope,” said Hossam al-Khouli, 50, the owner of a handicraft shop in Damascus’s old city.... “When Trump spoke last night, it was the first time in my life that I listened to any president in the world and began to clap. He’s a great man, really, he is a great man,” Khouli said, smiling....

“[I am] ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria to give them a fresh start,” Trump told the GCC. “It gives them a chance for greatness. The sanctions were really crippling, very powerful.”...

"'Hookahs and music were banned from the beginning, said Yahia Naeme, the owner of the cafe..."

"... who said the ban had lost him business because many people used to come to his cafe specifically to smoke hookahs. 'If we can’t offer it, they’ll get bored and go elsewhere,' he said. Other cafes in Idlib have skirted the law by offering hookahs in speakeasy-type environments behind closed doors. But Mr. Naeme did not want to risk running afoul of the area’s rulers...."

From "Cafes Can’t Play Music, but the Water Taps Work: Life Under Syria’s Rebels/The Islamists who now lead Syria have ruled the city of Idlib for years. Residents say they imposed some strict laws, but also heeded some complaints and improved public services" (NYT).

"Timmerman said he had sneaked into Syria from Lebanon on a 'religious pilgrimage' to Damascus. 'I heard the word of God,' he explained."

"He ended up in a prison in the Syrian capital known as the 'Palestinian Division,' and was held in a separate ward until Monday morning, a day after rebels took over the capital and freed thousands of inmates. 'It was a chaotic scene. I had my prison clothes on, and another prisoner was with me. I was walking to Jordan,' he said, stopping to rest every night in a farm. A local guard in Zahayabeh said he came across him in the morning. 'He didn’t speak much Arabic, so I took him home. He told me he wanted to go to bed. When he woke up, he asked for a fried egg and a boiled egg. I gave him both and some pickled eggplant too, and then I called you,' he said, turning to a member of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist rebel group that has taken over Damascus. 'And then, the media attacked.'"

From "US ‘pilgrim’ Travis Timmerman found after seven months in Syrian jail/The discovery of the American in Damascus raises hopes for the family of Austin Tice, the journalist who was kidnapped by Assad’s regime in Syria in 2012" (London Times).

"600,000 Russian soldiers lay wounded or dead, in a war that should never have started, and could go on forever."

"Russia and Iran are in a weakened state right now, one because of Ukraine and a bad economy, the other because of Israel and its fighting success. Likewise, Zelenskyy and Ukraine would like to make a deal and stop the madness. They have ridiculously lost 400,000 soldiers, and many more civilians. There should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin. Too many lives are being so needlessly wasted, too many families destroyed, and if it keeps going, it can turn into something much bigger, and far worse. I know Vladimir well. This is his time to act. China can help. The World is waiting!"

Writes Trump on Truth Social.

The NY Post writes about that statement in "Trump calls on 'weakened' Russia to enact ceasefire in Ukraine after Kremlin ally Assad is toppled in Syria." Excerpt: "Trump, who has at times expressed a fascination with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, remarked about how feeble Moscow appeared in Syria after the shocking and swift fall of Bashar al-Assad, whom Russia backed with troops, aircraft and navy ships."

"Syrian rebels topple President Assad, his whereabouts unknown."

A terse headline at Reuters. 

Syria's army command notified officers on Sunday that Assad's rule had ended.... Assad, who has not spoken in public since the sudden rebel advance a week ago, flew out of Damascus for an unknown destination earlier on Sunday, two senior army officers told Reuters, as rebels said they had entered the capital with no sign of army deployments. His whereabouts now - and those of his wife Asma and their two children - remain unknown....

Thousands in cars and on foot congregated at a main square in Damascus waving and chanting "Freedom" from a half century of Assad family rule, witnesses said. The collapse followed a shift in the balance of power in the Middle East after many leaders of Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, a lynchpin of Assad's battlefield force, were killed by Israel over the past two months. Russia, Assad's other key ally, has been focused on the war in Ukraine....

The United States will continue to maintain its presence in eastern Syria and will take measures necessary to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Daniel Shapiro told the Manama Dialogue security conference in Bahrain's capital on Sunday. Before its defeat, Islamic State imposed a reign of terror in large swathes of Syria and Iraq....

Speaking of "whereabouts unknown"... where, if anywhere, is our President, the President of the United States?

Is Biden there at all?

Or is Trump already the acting President? No one stopped him from looking like the President yesterday at the French festivities.

If Trump is the relevant President, we already know his ostensible position on Syria: "THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT."

"Stanford’s top disinformation research group collapses under pressure/The Stanford Internet Observatory provided real-time analysis..."

"... on viral election falsehoods but has struggled amid attacks from conservative politicians and activists." 

That's the headline at WaPo, and I'm wondering how the 2 parts of the headline relate to each other. Why did the Stanford Internet Observatory collapse? Was it because conservatives attacked it? How much of a struggle is it for a research group that specializes in monitoring disinformation to handle attacks? The word "amid" fudges the causal connection. Did X happen because of Y or did X and Y just happen around the same time?

The word "amid" also appears in the first sentence: "The Stanford Internet Observatory... has shed most of its staff and may shut down amid political and legal attacks that have cast a pall on efforts to study online misinformation."

"Amid" appears again in the 4th paragraph: "Students and scholars affiliated with the program say they have been worn down by online attacks and harassment amid the heated political climate for misinformation research, as legislators threaten to cut federal funding to universities studying propaganda."

Have I ever gone on "amid" alert before? Yes! In October 2013, there was a NYT headline, "Obama’s Uncertain Path Amid Syria Bloodshed." 

"Bashar al-Assad is laughing. Four days after an earthquake devastated northwest Syria, President Assad and his wife Asma visited sites of destruction..."

"... and survivors in regime-held Aleppo. This was Assad’s first public appearance after the natural disaster struck. He was not solemn. He was literally laughing."

From "Basking in adulation, how Assad is exploiting the earthquake/The disaster has let the Syrian dictator erase evidence of the regime’s heinous crimes, while brazenly demanding funds for reconstruction" (London Times).

"Just six miles away, across the border in Turkey, thousands of tons of relief poured in; support teams from as far away as Taiwan..."

"... answered the Turkish government’s call for help. But Syria, divided against itself and isolated from much of the world, was left to pick up the pieces alone, as it has again and again over more than a decade of war and dislocation. In the shattered town of Jinderis, at least 850 bodies had been recovered by Friday morning. Although hundreds are still missing, few believed there were any lives left to save. 'We needed help here, we asked for help here,' said the town’s mayor, Mahmoud Hafar. 'It never came.'..."

 
From "In earthquake-battered Syria, a desperate wait for help that never came" (WaPo).

"On a rare visit to this Syrian enclave, controlled by Turkish-backed armed groups, The Washington Post found communities gripped by shock and bewilderment, and very much alone. In Jinderis, fathers stood watch over the remains of their homes and told of waking up to find their wives and children dead. As hulking excavators clawed the rubble, searching for a 13-year old boy, a man asked reporters to help him contact the United Nations for help. 'Maybe they don’t know what happened in Jinderis,' he said. 'No one could see this and not come here.'"

"A powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked wide swaths of Turkey and Syria early Monday, toppling hundreds of buildings and killing more than 1,300 people. "

"Hundreds were still believed to be trapped under rubble, and the toll was expected to rise as rescue workers searched mounds of wreckage in cities and towns across the area. On both sides of the border, residents jolted out of sleep by the pre-dawn quake rushed outside on a cold, rainy and snowy night. Buildings were reduce to piles of pancaked floors, while major aftershocks, some nearly as strong as the first, continued.... It struck a region that has been shaped on both sides of the border by more than a decade of civil war in Syria. On the Syrian side, the swath affected is divided between government-held territory and the country’s last opposition-held enclave, which is surrounded by Russian-backed government forces.... 'There are so many other people who are also trapped,” [Huseyin Yayman, a legislator from Turkey’s Hatay province]. 'There are so many buildings that have been damaged. People are on the streets. It’s raining, it’s winter.'"

 AP reports.

"The Turkish government said this week that it has opened deportation proceedings against at least seven Syrian nationals accused of eating bananas in a 'provocative' way while participating in a TikTok video challenge..."

"... in a move that underscores rising hostility toward Syrians in a country with a reputation for being welcoming to refugees. The challenge was inspired by an Oct. 17 encounter on the streets of Istanbul that was captured on video, during which a man complained that he could not afford bananas, a staple that has fallen out of the reach of many consumers amid a poor economy. Turning to a female Syrian student, he alleged that refugees from Syria were buying the fruit by the 'kilos,' a reference to false rumors that displaced people were living in luxury off Turkish taxpayer largesse. In response, Syrians in Turkey and elsewhere posted videos of themselves eating bananas to poke fun at the incident. In one video, a group of young Syrians sat around the room, chuckling as they ate their fruit."

 
WaPo reports.

Skimming that, I got confused and thought the "provocative" banana-eating was something like this. You don't really need to look at that to know what it is. You know what it is. 

But it was just people engaged in typical banana-eating, like you see in that "one video" linked above. I experienced secondary confusion thinking the style — American style? — of taking a series of bites from the whole banana looks obscene in some countries. But no, it was just showing off that they had bananas and that it was absurd to think of access to bananas as a mark of a life of luxury.

"In Athens... the puppet will befriend a minotaur and they will explore the city together. In Naples she is tired, has had enough..."

"... and will have a tantrum which, Vesuvius-like, releases energy, which will bring hundreds of dancers and musicians to join her. In Cologne, Amal will share apple pie with elderly people and hear their stories of growing up after the second world war."

From "Puppet of refugee girl to ‘walk’ across Europe along 12-week arts festival trail/Three teams of four puppeteers will accompany Little Amal from Turkey to Manchester to celebrate refugees" (The Guardian).

"Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has told Europe it will have to take the 'burden' of 'millions' of incoming migrants..."

"... as Greece today tried to fend off an 'invasion' of people after Turkey threw open its borders. More than 13,000 migrants have gathered on the Turkish side of the river which runs 125 miles along the frontier and separates them from Greece, and therefore the EU. Greek police were today firing tear gas at the crowds, as migrants tried to swim across the river or squeeze through fences at one of the few land crossings, although only dozens have succeeded so far. One child died when a dinghy boat capsized during a sea crossing, the Greek coast guard said today. Turkish security forces also claimed that a Syrian migrant had died from injuries after a clash with Greek security forces, but Athens has today branded the claim 'fake news.'.... Turkish leader Erdogan... [told] party supporters in Ankara: 'After we opened the doors, there were multiple calls saying "close the doors." I told them it's done. It's finished. The doors are now open. Now, you will have to take your share of the burden. Hundreds of thousands have crossed, soon we will it will reach millions'..."

The Daily Mail reports.

"The Islamic State’s project to establish a proto-state and expand its domain across a broad swath of Iraq and Syria attracted tens of thousands of foreign fighters from at least 80 countries..."

"Some security experts say it is crucial for countries to repatriate and prosecute their nationals if the jihadist movement is to be prevented from rising again. They add that due process also requires this. But the difficulties are many. Some governments don’t even know how many of their nationals are being held, who they are or how deeply they were involved in Islamic State atrocities. Many countries lack the laws to prosecute alleged fighters, and even if the laws are on the books, it is often unclear whether evidence from the battlefield would hold up in court. If they are convicted, they could radicalize others in custody and then be released after sentences as short as three years, leaving already overburdened police to keep unrepentant militants from turning to violence again. Western European countries, in particular, have been resistant to bringing the prisoners home, citing obstacles ranging from national security to domestic politics...."

From "After the Caliphate: Disarmed but not defused/The defeat of the ISIS caliphate left this Moroccan militant and about 2,000 other suspected foreign fighters detained in northeastern Syria. Will they pose a greater threat there or back in their home countries?" (WaPo).

Trump, just now, on the success of his withdrawal from Syria.

https://t.co/7Ud0WLyo4g

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 23, 2019

"The Cease-Fire in Syria Worked (More or Less)/Whatever the agreement was, it left the status quo in place, at least for the time being."

Writes Kathy Gilsinan in The Atlantic.

[I]t more or less worked... in the very narrow sense of stopping the worst of the Turkish onslaught against the Syrian Kurds for a time. Now there’s a different kind of order in place of the fighting: Syrian Kurdish forces have withdrawn from a chunk of territory near Syria’s border with Turkey; Russia has vowed to help Turkey push them from an area twice as large....

[I]t’s only become clearer that each of the key players—the U.S., Turkey, and the Syrian Kurdish leadership—all believe they agreed to different things....

By "all believe they agreed to different things," she means all assert something different about what was agreed to. No one is speaking the truth straight from their brain. Anything anyone says is to advance their interests.

Despite accusations that the United States had abandoned the Kurds, they seemed to have no intention of abandoning the United States....

Erdoğan may have received enough guarantees, from enough international backers, to maintain the cease-fire—or whatever it is—for now. He has managed to pull both Russia and the United States into effectively guaranteeing Turkish security along its border with Syria. He has, through three separate incursions into northern Syria since 2016, chopped up a stretch of contiguous Kurdish-held territory they had hoped to keep autonomous....

Of course, I don't know what is really happening, but I hope for the best. I hope Trump's decision works out well, and I wonder if Trump's antagonists are hoping it goes badly, hoping Trump fails.

It was in that context that I undertook the search of the archive discussed in the previous post. How awful it is for Americans to be rooting for the failure of an American military effort because that's how much they hate Trump and want him proved horribly, irrefutably wrong! That made me want to look back at what I'd written when Rush Limbaugh said — on the occasion of Obama's inauguration — "I hope he fails."

ADDED: It wasn't the Atlantic article that got me thinking in these terms this morning. It was this Trump tweet:

Big success on the Turkey/Syria Border. Safe Zone created! Ceasefire has held and combat missions have ended. Kurds are safe and have worked very nicely with us. Captured ISIS prisoners secured. I will be making a statement at 11:00 A.M. from the White House. Thank you!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 23, 2019

"Syria critic Lindsey Graham reverses stance, says Trump's policy could succeed."

Reuters reports.

“I am increasingly optimistic that we can have some historic solutions in Syria that have eluded us for years if we play our cards right,” Graham said.

Graham said Trump was prepared to use U.S. air power over a demilitarized zone occupied by international forces, adding that the use of air power could help ensure Islamic State fighters who had been held in the area did not “break out.”...

Graham also said he believed the United States and Kurdish forces long allied with Washington could establish a venture to modernize Syrian oil fields, with the revenue flowing to the Kurds. “President Trump is thinking outside the box,” Graham said of Trump’s thinking on oil. “The president appreciates what the Kurds have done,” Graham added. “He wants to make sure ISIS does not come back. I expect we will continue to partner with the Kurds in Eastern Syria to make sure ISIS does not re-emerge.”

"Defense Secretary Mark Esper says that under current plans all U.S. troops leaving Syria will go to western Iraq and the military will continue to conduct operations against the Islamic State group to prevent its resurgence...."

"The developments made clear that one of President Donald Trump's rationales for withdrawing troops from Syria was not going to come to pass any time soon. 'It's time to bring our soldiers back home,' he said Wednesday. But they are not coming home.... While [Esper] acknowledged reports of intermittent fighting despite the cease-fire agreement, he said that overall it 'generally seems to be holding. We see a stability of the lines, if you will, on the ground.' He also said that, so far, the Syrian Democratic Forces that partnered with the U.S. to fight IS have maintained control of the prisons in Syria where they are still present. The Turks, he said, have indicated they have control of the IS prisons in their areas. 'I can't assess whether that's true or not without having people on the ground,' said Esper."

ABC News reports.

ADDED: Here's the full transcript of Esper's remarks.

"It’s been … suggested that Turkey may have called America’s bluff, telling the president they are coming no matter what we did."

"If that’s so, we should know it. For it would tell us a great deal about how we should deal with Turkey, now and in the future.... Are we so weak and inept diplomatically that Turkey forced the hand of the United States of America? Turkey!?... I believe that it’s imperative that public hearings are held to answer these questions, and I hope the Senate is able to conduct those hearings next week."

Said Mitt Romney, quoted in "Sen. Mitt Romney raises a troubling theory about Trump and Turkey" (WaPo).

If that’s so, we should know it... Is that so? How can we know it? Romney is talking about reading Erdogan's mind in the past. But, whatever... more hearings! I wonder why. I can't help thinking that the reason for more hearings is to keep up the pressure on Trump and to undermine him to the maximum extent possible. Trump's decision already happened, and maybe it was less good than something else that might have been done, but what's the best way to move forward? Is it making Trump look as "weak and inept" as possible?

ADDED: Here's Trump falling for another con:

DEFEAT TERRORISM! https://t.co/8WbnLPgWIK

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 18, 2019

UPDATE, 6:36 PM: Trump tweeted this within the last hour:

pic.twitter.com/p5imhMJqS1

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 18, 2019

"Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday agreed to a deal with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that accepted a Turkish military presence in a broad part of northern Syria in exchange for the promise of a five-day cease-fire..."

"... completing an abrupt reversal of American policy in the Syrian conflict. Emerging from close to five hours of talks after a hastily arranged trip to Ankara, the Turkish capital, Mr. Pence hailed the agreement as a diplomatic victory for President Trump, calling it a 'solution we believe will save lives.' The agreement 'ends the violence — which is what President Trump sent us here to do,' Mr. Pence said at a news conference at the ambassador’s residence. Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, immediately contradicted the description of the agreement, saying it was not a cease-fire at all, but merely a 'pause for our operation.' He added that 'as a result of our president’s skillful leadership, we got what we wanted.'"

The NYT reports the deal U.S. reached with Turkey.

Of course, Trump's critics will not stand down or give him any credit for doing anything right, so I like Trump's approach:

This is a great day for civilization. I am proud of the United States for sticking by me in following a necessary, but somewhat unconventional, path. People have been trying to make this “Deal” for many years. Millions of lives will be saved. Congratulations to ALL!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 17, 2019

He's acting like everyone supported him and congratulating everyone. This gets my "nice Trump" tag.

"Donald Trump's mixture of threats and locker-room banter infuriated Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan."

"His staff told the BBC that he threw the letter into the bin and launched the Syrian operation the same day. That could be proof there was no Trumpian green light. But ever since President Obama partnered up with the Syrian Kurds of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) against the jihadists of IS it was clear the arrangement would lead to problems with the Turks. That's because the SDF is very close to the Turkish Kurds of the PKK. Turkey says they are two halves of the same terror group. Presidents Erdogan and Trump discussed military action last December. Diplomatic sources here in Ankara suggest that Turkey's broader strategic objective was to detach the Kurds and the Americans. That, at any rate, has happened...."

BBC reports.